


Sleeping Beauty

by crackleviolet



Category: Mystic Messenger
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 02:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11911638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackleviolet/pseuds/crackleviolet
Summary: I have no excuse for this. This is just me being a dick.MC cheated. Jumin is in a coma. She hopes her voice will wake him.





	Sleeping Beauty

When she closes her eyes, she sees him as he was; fingers looped into his tie or examining his phone. She recalls his soft smiles and the whisper as he turns the pages of books she has long since forgotten; hands as gentle on the spines of his books as they were on her body. **  
**

He is smaller in the hospital bed, wearing a pinstriped set of pyjamas she knew he would never have approved of wide awake. More than once she has peered across at him from the chair at the side of his bed, taking in his dark eyelashes and the bruises that currently pepper his face, recalling every occasion she woke before him and stroked the same spot on the bridge of his nose.

She cannot stand to look at him now that he lies still beneath the sheets. It is impossible to ignore the fact that he is gone completely even if his body is intact. For the past week, she has used every excuse possible to leave, though it often backfires when medical staff and even her friends mistake her guilt for grief. They hand her tissues and condolences without realising that if she cries at all it is out of frustration.

Their last conversation was an argument and she has had more time than usual to think about it. She remembers every word, every intonation. She remembers running her fingers through her hair as she leaned into the bedroom door.

“Jumin, please.”

But of course he wouldn’t let her in. He let her in once before and, in his absence, she allowed another man to follow. Not even a man whose name he knew and whose history was familiar; a man whose character he might have measured against his own, leaving him satisfied knowing the mistakes he had made. Instead she brought a stranger to their bed on more than one occasion, knowing it for a betrayal, but only feeling guilty as Jumin walked through the bedroom door.

She has long since given up on trying to piece together her conscience. Perhaps she meant to be caught and the horror across her face was only ever automatic. She is sure she will never forget how long he actually stood in the doorway, unable to drag his eyes from her as her lover clumsily dragged on his clothes. Later, as he reached for his car keys, he could not bring himself to look at her at all.

“Do you know Sleeping Beauty?” He asked her once.

At the time she blushed and gripped the phone, knowing it was only a serious question in the vaguest sense of the term, but wanting more than anything to tell him the honest truth. Sleeping Beauty was her favourite fairy story, after all. She loved nothing more than simple stories of wicked witches and lonely castles abandoned to thorns.

The parallel haunts her now that friends and acquaintances send her roses in sympathy. For the past week he’s remained in exactly the same place and she has watched in silence, knowing if nothing else that her lips will not rouse him either way.

Today she turns the pages of a novel to the beeping of his life support. The book is not hers and she has never before been inclined to read it, instead nestling her head into the pillows to listen to Jumin’s voice.

It was Chief Han’s current girlfriend who suggested it; beaming widely as they sat in the waiting room.

“You should try talking to him!”

Up until that point, the other woman had been examining the state of her mascara, so the outburst took MC more than a little by surprise.

“I should what?”

“I saw it on a drama once! The main lead’s husband was in a coma for six months,” she said, reaching into her purse for her lipstick. “She sang to him every day and in the end it was her voice that woke him up!”

“I… don’t think this is quite the same thing.”

She remembers sighing inwardly and getting up from her chair, dismissing the idea without a second thought. Later, though, she pulled the book from his shelf and poured herself a glass of wine, knowing damn well it was ridiculous and feeling foolish for even considering it an option, all while turning to his bookmark nonetheless.

She feels awkward now, skimming the words and clearing her throat, remembering the first time he tucked her into bed and found his place without looking. Even now that they are married, he has yet to read the final chapter and deep down she knows he never means to. She might have brought a man to their bed, but she was not the first to be unfaithful.

“I always sit on the wooden shelf and stare at the same scenery. I’ve always stayed still, not moving a single finger. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

She reaches to turn the page, screwing up her eyes to ignore the fact that they well with tears.

“I stayed still, glancing at people occasionally passing by and looking for something to catch their eyes on the shelf. And I remember that one single moment, when someone held me up.”

She glances across at his sleeping features; he has not changed, has not moved and the silence continues with or without her. In truth, she did not expect her lips to rouse him, but finds herself disappointed nonetheless.

“I’m sorry,” she says, relaxing her body into the chair as she closes the book. “This was a terrible idea.”

A flutter of an eyelid, a twitch of a finger; he may hate her now, but his forgiveness is the only one that matters and if he is gone, she is doomed to silence. She climbs out of the chair, suddenly eager to splash cold water across her face at the fact that she really did love him once even if he doesn’t believe her now.

She plants one lingering kiss to his forehead before leaving the room, closing the door behind her and smiling politely at a passing nurse.

He gasps for air as the water hits her face; screwing up his eyes as she recalls the couple they used to be. She misses his fingers trembling in the bed; his eyes slowly searching the room as she reapplies her makeup.


End file.
